Touhou Tokiko Chapter 1
by bookreadingyoukai
Summary: The birth of the Book-reading youkai


**Feather 1: Birth**

They say when an object or animal has lived long enough;  
they'll eventually gain sentience and become what are known as "Youkai".

Youkai are creatures with tremendous strength and age-won wisdom.  
Some even develop a great deal of charisma, making them more alluring  
in the eyes of their prey rather than menacing.

They have been feared by humans since the beginning of time. Their  
lifespans measure greatly than that of mere humans, such this is an  
advantage for them in a sense. But youkai all share a common weakness.

Light, it's like poison to them. The mere flash of the sun's rays bring any  
youkai to their knees, making them weaker, some even vaporize leaving  
a pile of dust in their wake.

Thus, the humans who dwell within the light and the youkai that abodes  
within the darkness, almost never see each other. Though some powerful  
youkai are able to withstand the light, they are only few in numbers, and  
are rarely seen.

A few days after an ibis chick had hatched; she was taken from her natural  
habitat and was being raised in captivity in an aviary of a family of humans.

She was fed and cared for like the rest of the other birds she was held captive  
with. She was young at the time, even considered the other birds as her  
actual family.

The sanctuary in which they lived in was an area of land and like any aviary,  
a roof knitted with bamboo from top to bottom, covering the place with a wooden  
barrier. Thereby keeping the birds in, but keeping any potential danger out.

The population of fowls was bountiful, making it difficult for any of them to fly around.  
But flying didn't deem necessary to any of them. They were all out of harm's way and  
everyday they sang harmonious melodies and in the night would they pass it on to  
the crickets chirping their eventide choir. It was their paradise.

But their safe haven didn't last very long. In her adolescence, the young ibis has come  
to join the chorus. It was in that time, everything changed.

The father had entered the aviary wearing a blood-stained apron. He enumerated the  
birds before taking one –a crane- and carrying her out of the sanctuary. Never to be  
seen or heard of again.

But their song did not falter and continued to sing their melodies and choruses day by  
day as if nothing had happened.

Alas, it went on for weeks, the father –wearing that same blood-stained apron- would  
arrive into the aviary and take one of the birds before going off with it. Eventually, their  
choir became so grotesque to the point it could hardly be considered as music.

One by one their numbers dwindled and eventually the sole avian left was the young ibis.  
Who was next to be taken away by the hands of the butcher who had arrived at the break  
of dawn.

She was uneasy about that man, but she acquiesced and let herself be taken away in hopes  
of that she may meet her musical companions. Though, not in a way that she had expected.

Taken from her home and carried away to his shop, the man tied her legs together to prevent  
her from ever trying to escape. She was flailing but to no avail. All the while the butcher was  
sharpening his knife on a revolving grindstone.

The man grabbed her by the neck and carried her to his chopping board. The ibis, didn't want to die.

"HOOOOOOOWL!"

A black gale appeared out of nowhere. The earsplitting cry caused the butcher to flinch and  
released the bleeding ibis from his grasp. He fell to the floor, lifeless. It was as if his very soul  
was blown away by the dark wind.

The entire family heard the commotion from their house not too far from where the shop was  
standing. They all rushed to the scene, the mother and her two children.

They found a horrible sight. Her husband void of life, the wall all drenched with blood and  
knives and cleavers were scattered about on the floor and their faces, full of fear.

The mother went to tend to her dead husband with the children following her. She was crying  
a river's worth of tears over him. The kids saw the half-dead bird and call out to their mom.

She became enraged. But she prioritized her husband and kept the bird in a sack, saving it to  
be thrown into the forest by night.

And so a funeral was done for her deceased betrothed and it lasted the entire day from dawn  
till dusk.

By the end of the day and the father now buried. The angry widow veiled herself with a hood  
and ventured out of the village and into the forest, carrying the sack with the ibis -who was  
dangling in the boundary between life and death- still inside.

Much walking under the full moon, she stopped at some point. Threw the ibis' blood-stained  
body, leaving it to rot or to be eaten by the night creatures, like any other animal. The widow  
then headed back towards the village, not looking back.

Though what she had done was a grave mistake. Under the shine of the full moon, spiritual  
powers and greatly amplified. And with the ibis whose sheer will to live basking under the rays  
of the moon, her body began to glow.

Glowing, changing, living, and evolving.


End file.
